Chapter Seven: Swimming Lessons and Stomachaches
"Huff…puff…"
Medli butterfly-stroked at a snail's pace across the swimming pond, water splashing over her and leaking into her swim goggles.
Her feet had long since ceased to touch the pond's sandy bottom, and her mind was filling with all sorts of thoughts about what was lurking beneath the water's surface.
She had another ten feet to swim before she reached the other side of the pond. But it might as well have been on the other side of Lake Hylia.
"Come on, you can do it!" Sidon was waist-deep in the water, a whistle around his neck and a clipboard in his hand.
Sidon was overseeing the swimming tests, to see how ready the campers were for water sports. Each camper had to do dog paddles, breaststrokes, backstrokes, and the butterfly, float on their backs, and then swim to the other side of the pond and back.
"Just a bit more, you're doing great!" Sidon called.
Medli reached the other side of the pond at long last. She flopped down on the sand and the dune grass and spread her wings out to dry.
"Good work!" Sidon checked off something on the clipboard. "Well done, Medli! Tona, you're next!" he called to a Zora girl waiting next in line.
If anything, Tona looked even more nervous than Medli did. She stood on the edge of the pond, toes curled into the sand, with a pair of inflatable water wings on her arms.
"Step right in, Tona, that's right," Sidon coaxed her.
"You're a Zora! You're supposed to already know how to swim!" a boy said.
Tona turned bright red and tried to hide her face.
"Not always," Sidon said. "Some of us learn to swim faster than others, and some never swim at all. It's the same with Ritos and flying."
Tona took a few hesitant steps into the water.
"Look out below!" somebody yelled.
A giant red rubber kickball landed in the water with a splash. Tona gasped and jumped out of the way.
"The blood moon rises once again," Sidon joked. He picked up the ball and looked around to see where it had come from.
"Hey, Sidon, can you send that back up here?" Riju called from the top of the ladder leading down to the pond. She also had a whistle around her neck, like Sidon, but unlike Sidon, she was looking harried and frazzled.
"Coming up!" Sidon threw the ball into the air and gave it a perfect volleyball spike up to Riju.
"Thanks!" Riju caught the ball and turned back to the dodgeball game in progress on the green.
The game teams consisted of ten kids in various states of being sweaty, disheveled, and grass-stained.
"Now, I want to be clear. I don't want to see any more hard throws, do you understand?" Riju said sternly. She was looking squarely at three boys in particular - Kenyo, Nebb, and Sefaro - as she said this.
"Okay."
"Sure."
Riju wasn't entirely convinced those three would follow orders. Since the start of the sports activities they'd been huddled in one corner of the playing field, snickering and giggling and clearly plotting something.
"Switch teams now. Red team on the outside, blue on the inside," Riju said.
Kenyo aimed for the group and threw the ball as hard as he could. Most of the kids were able to jump out of the way - except one.
The ball smacked hard into Komali's stomach, sending him to the ground. "Owww!" Komali cried.
"Whoo! Good shot, Kenyo!" Nebb and Sefaro high-fived him.
"Time out!" Riju blew her whistle and helped Komali sit up. "Komali, are you all right?"
But Komali scrambled to his feet, wiping at his eyes, and ran away without a word as he clutched his stomach.
"Game over," Riju said. "Everyone back to the recreation pavilion. You three," she said with a warning look at the three boys, "I want to have a word with you as soon as I get back there." She got to her feet and headed off after Komali.
A short distance up the path, Riju almost collided with Zelda, as the latter stepped out of the supply shop with an armload of backpacks and canteens.
"Is everything all right, Riju?" Zelda asked. "I just saw Komali go running past a second ago. He looked really upset."
"Dodgeball game gone wrong," Riju groaned. "Urbosa wants me to organize the next round of stuff in the rec pavilion. But now I have to help Komali, and I'm probably going to have to haul those three kids from Purah's cabin in for a talk with Rhoam and Impa. Can you take over for me?"
"Well, I've only got a few minutes before I'm taking some kids out hiking, but I'll see what I can do. And I'll see if Yunobo can help - he's good at that kind of thing."
"Thanks, Zel." Riju rolled her eyes. "Being a junior counselor wasn't supposed to be this hard!"
Zelda laughed. "Welcome to camp, Riju."
Meanwhile, back down at the pond, the last of Sidon's swimming class had exited the pond. Tona had discarded her water wings - which ended up being a hindrance - and she was now out of breath but considerably happier.
"Zo! Zo! Ra! Ra!" Sidon beamed and checked something off on his clipboard. "Full marks for everyone. What a fine group of swimmers! Now let's go get you all outfitted for some Zora armor, and we'll all go swimming up the waterfall up the river, how's that?"
A big cheer went up from the kids.
"Excellent! Last one to the supply shop is a rotten egg!"
xLoZx